


The Absolute Almost

by oudeteron



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oudeteron/pseuds/oudeteron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locked up in his own prison, Gellert reflects. And pretends the addressee of his thoughts can hear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Absolute Almost

**Author's Note:**

> This was partly inspired by a song that, despite having zero relevance to HP, I somehow thought suited the theme of getting into Grindelwald's head and the tone (someone's uploaded it [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpRZK0_7tzg), for however long it may stay up):
> 
>  _"I have been inside of you  
>  You will know the price of freedom  
> You need to know you lied to me  
> You will know what you tried to be  
> I have cleansed inside of you  
> Now you scream inside of me"_  
>      --hide, "Hey Man So Long"

Day unnumbered, Nurmengard. Cold. Four walls – so barren they could be made of ice, Albus, solid blocks of ice. You would never stand them, you with your vibrant colours, you with your red hair – no, not very red anymore. Still, these walls... these barricades would crush you. Me, they respect. They will not part to let me out, but they are not closing in, either. Although they have every conceivable advantage over me here.

If you wanted to see me wax philosophical and ponder the rhyme and reason of my bloodstained hands, this is your cue to congratulate yourself. I can do nothing _else_ than think. I would wonder if anybody ever told you about life in prison, but that would mean conceding you can imagine it. I would tell you if you ever wrote. The nights, the days, they’re all the same. I remember I screamed. Before. When was _that_ again – a few minutes ago, a week, a year. It might have been in 1945.

I watch as dust flutters toward the ground, and everywhere. Disperse in the universe. The ceiling is as grey as the floor and just as insipid, just as _nothing_. I look at it every evening lying on the bed – if I can flatter this pile of mould so much – or even on the floor. I watch it till the world goes dark.

Sometimes, I envisage this cell I haunt as the heart of Nurmengard, a residue of life isolated in one crack of a rock. As though my cage and I were mere components of one great entity. Perhaps we are, we might be – after all, I _created_ this prison. It should obey me...

Traitor.

Well, Albus dearest, the pair of us was not completely free of disagreements even during our two months. Once, I spitefully claimed that you failed to comprehend any of my plans. It took me some years shut up here, in truth, to accept defeat even on that front. But if I had known... had understood “the greater good” earlier, perhaps we could have still... no. That bright hope died with your sister.

I envy you. I envy you every last shred of distraction.

I have long ceased to blame you, though. If I didn’t know any better, I would even dare hope you might have stopped feeling responsible for that awful accident. How do you think of _me_ , Albus? You may picture me as caged, slowly wasting away; passions forced inward, eating at me. You are not far from reality. Helplessly now – and being helpless is a nightmare of mine, as you are doubtless aware – I wish our final encounter had at least convinced you of my inability to entertain emotion. It would have been my guarantee against your pity. But you were not fooled then – not again, not when I had fooled you once before. Your aim was to settle old matters and leave me to rot. You had determined that I was evil, that I deserved punishment – you carried it out. That’s not what I would have done, myself. I like to think I would have killed you.

Hypocrite. You have _not_ done me a favour by keeping me alive like this.

Oh, enough of the indignation; you are the first who would laugh at such a misguided display of violence. There are other things to address, more interesting things. The remaining scraps, you might call them. Go ahead.

Strange how time seems to have reversed itself over the years. I hardly retain anything from my so-called reign of terror, although for our purposes it’s relatively recent. What I remember almost too well is... Summer. Sunlight in blue, sunlight on red. Fingers tracing new pathways over ( _as yet_ , I whispered) unbroken skin, chasing excitement left and right, up and down. You are touching my face, cupping it in your hands, your eyes a mixture of lust you struggle not to acknowledge and affection you revel in. You lean in close. But what does it matter when in the memory it is always I who pushes you down, bats your hands away and kisses you. What does it matter? Your mind, your heart, even your body was an open book to me. Burning for me, you were. You burned even me, whether you wanted to or not. You _were_ fire.

Pathetic reminiscence of a fallen tyrant? Admit it, you wouldn’t recognize that unless you knew it was me. You would simply catalogue the scene as “familiar”.

For my part, I enjoyed cracking open that shell of yours. You were so very modest at first, it was endearing. But once unleashed, your brilliance, your sheer _power_ – magnificent. Is that why you kept it so tightly bound? Regardless, you allowed me a taste of it, and that taste lingers, overwhelming me now that I have nothing but recollections left. Your name, it’s still resounding in my brain, today and every day. And at night, when the silence envelops me like leaden water, I lay down on my ugly bed and I let you crawl all through me. It makes me shudder, even gasp in pain. Don’t be mistaken and think I can still summon up desire (anything to that effect has become quite impossible) but sometimes I am surprised. Once – it must have been some important date – I closed my eyes, and after I opened them again, I could not see. Tears. I rather think you would find that touching.

To make it clear, I don’t _dream_ of you. I do not sleep anymore; I doze. Just as I don’t hate anymore – I am only bitter. That is the punishment Nurmengard has devised for its master: nothing is absolute anymore. Every single thing has lost whatever intensity it once had, whatever clarity. Utterly disgusting, this dull trap. Try wallowing for decades in mud! It would drive you _insane_.

A guard who fancied mocking me showed me a picture of you in one of those silly newspapers. It had not the impact I suppose he had intended – I could hardly have been enraged to see you, albeit in a cheap moving photograph. Nor did the fact that you had aged cause me earth-shattering shock. But your eyes were dead. The headline read _HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED ON THE RISE_. Very awkward. Someone must have caught you in an unguarded moment for your precious _feelings_ to shine through.

Albus. Look at me. That’s what that golden-haired boy said to you, remember? Remember it? He was beautiful, wasn’t he. I can still see you making love to him – that’s your term for it, never anything else, never anything less meaningful – and I hear your confessions to him: _“We would never have met. I do not complain...”_ Surreal. Oh, you wouldn’t love me now.

He never answers you, never. You share with him all there is to share, you soak up his dreams of fame and might and eternity – you _adore_ him, and of course he believes the things you murmur in the dark because you make such a miserable liar, you know that? And you feel fine, you feel wonderful, because you hold the love of your life who was never worth it in the first place, but what’s one petty stain to your grand vision when perfection glitters within reach? You actually say it aloud: _“I love you.”_ You never get the response you need – want. You mask your impatience well, and he – _I_ do the same with my intent not to become as predictable to you as your devotion is making you to me while our weeks stretch into infinity. Yes. At this point in time, we both assume that what remains can only be forever.

And that’s just it.

You should have realized one thing, my fair idealistic Doom. I almost, _almost_ told you.


End file.
